Orwell and Samsung - Smart TV's now listen to your every word, and share them

[David Guyatt]

I'm fighting this tooth and nail.

The following is the text of my emails to and from Samsung:

Dear Samsung,

Regarding the news report in today's Independent newspaper:

(http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/...33012.html),

Please note that I own three Samsung tv's. Fortunately none are the latest smart ones. And now never will be.

I commit and promise never again to buy another Samsung product of any type unless or until the technical ability to collect peoples audio conversations (and worse images when or if that happens too) is completely removed. I do not mean simply a reversal of the corporare decision to collect this datas, but the technical ability to do so.

I am now in the process of contacting every one of my friends and family to urge them to do the same and am fairly confident most will agree, because this is a step too far past reasonableness that most people will rightly abhor.

I am taking the time to tell you this.

Sincerely

David Guyatt

Samsung's reply today:

Dear Mr Guyatt

I am contacting in response to your e-mail to Red Consultancy concerning the recent article that you have read in The Independent concerning Samsung Smart televisions.

Whilst we recognise your position that you do not currently own a Smart Television please be assured that Samsung takes consumer privacy very seriously and our products are designed with privacy in mind. We employ industry-standard security safeguards and practices, including data encryption, to secure consumers' personal information and prevent unauthorized collection or use.

Voice recognition, which allows the user to control the TV using voice commands, is a Samsung Smart TV feature, which can be activated or deactivated by the user. Should consumers enable the voice recognition capability, the voice data consists of TV commands, or search sentences, only. Users can easily recognize if the voice recognition feature is activated because a microphone icon appears on the screen.

If a consumer consents and uses the voice recognition feature, voice data is provided to a third party during a requested voice command search to execute the command. At that time, the voice data is sent to a server, which searches for the requested content then returns the desired content to the TV.

Regards

Sean

And my response:

Thank you Sean.

My position is that whether or not you use encryption is beside the point. I will not buy a product that collects audio data from my living room and shares it with a third party. It is not your right to "secure" my private conversations or comments made from the security of my home.

There is also the added concern of others being able to hack into this data stream irrespective of your industry standard encryption.

This is a dangerous and irresponsible development and I aim to fully inform my friends and family - and a wider circle, in fact - of your decision to undertake what is, in effect, a surreptitious entry into my home to eavesdrop on my private conversations. If I, and others, do not fight this now, what's to stop other TV manufacturers to follow suit? If they are not doing so already?

This whole matter also creates the genuine concern that the next intrusion will be to collect visual data in addition to audio - again assuming this is not already a fact --- or is otherwise on the drawing board if the current incursion is permitted to proceed unhindered.

I think Samsung need to urgently review and reverse this decision and act with haste to assure customers accordingly. What might start out as an innovative idea must be reviewed and assessed from all angles. The "dark side" of this new technological ability will ultimately be used for the worst possible reasons. Human nature will assure that outcome.

Sincerely,

David Guyatt